Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

The NBA should write B.B. King a nice royalty check, because one of his hits is the theme song for this season. The Thrill Is Gone, baby, and it's been gone for quite a while, probably since Michael Jordan laced 'em up in training camp. Seven weeks remain in the regular season, but is there any reason the engravers should not get started on the championship trophy right now? Does anyone envision a scenario (other than an injury to Jordan) in which the Chicago Bulls—50-7 at week's end, seven games better than their nearest competitors, the Detroit Pistons—do not breeze to their second straight title and their fifth of this decade? "When the Bulls are ready to hang it up," Detroit coach Doug Collins said a few weeks ago, "we just want to be ready to take over for them." There's a pep talk right out of Rockne, huh?

But Collins is only giving voice to what logical minds concluded some time ago. This NBA season has been tailor-made for narcoleptics: Fall asleep, and you won't miss a thing. In a way, the Bulls' cold-blooded efficiency has worked against them. While their effort to break the record for regular-season wins was big news last year—they succeeded with a 72-10 mark—the fact that it took them only one more game this season to reach 50 wins has largely been overlooked. There was more excitement, more juice, connected to the Chicago crusade of 1995-96. It was Jordan's first complete season after almost two years away, and fans were eager to see if he was still the game's best player. (He was.) It was Dennis Rodman's first season with the Bulls, and fans were curious to see if he would be a cross-dressing virus that would kill the team. (He wasn't.) And there was belief in some quarters that the NBA's young up-and-comers, the Orlando Magic in the East and the Seattle SuperSonics in the West, had the guns to stop Chicago in the playoffs. (They didn't.)

There is none of that now, and the lack of a team strong enough to challenge the Bulls is particularly disheartening for the league. Even when the Boston Celtics were stringing together 11 championships in 13 seasons between 1957 and '69, there was always a threat in the shadows—Bob Pettit's St. Louis Hawks or Wilt Chamberlain's Philadelphia Warriors and 76ers. No one's lurking this year. Chicago isn't significantly better than it was last season, yet the gap between the Bulls and everyone else seems wider. Seattle is running in place. Shaquille O'Neal's move to the Los Angeles Lakers broke up the Magic. All that seems to stand between the Houston Rockets and mediocrity is one more injury to Charles Barkley. The New York Knicks have several new faces but are still the good-but-not-good-enough Knicks of past seasons. Perhaps the Lakers or the Miami Heat would look more dangerous if not for injuries to their respective mainstays, O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning.

At this checkpoint, then, the most intriguing question seems to be, Is Chicago's supremacy good or bad for the NBA?

Beyond that, one wonders what will happen when the Bulls are dominant no more, when Jordan takes to the links permanently and coach Phil Jackson goes off to compose haiku on a mountain in Montana. Jordan, 34, and Jackson have committed to at least one more season, and Scottie Pippen, 31, is in the next-to-last year of his contract. Barring an unforeseen turn of events, they will all be back next year, and Rodman says he wants to stay in the cast of Chicago too. But after that? Can anybody really imagine the league without its red-and-black showpiece?

Anyone who doesn't think today's NBA is primarily a Bulls market probably thinks Jordan is still playing outfield for the Birmingham Barons. "People look at the Bulls like they look at a historical landmark," says that noted historian Rodman. Don't laugh. So utterly has Chicago bulldozed opponents that it's like the Statue of Liberty: No one can muster antipathy toward it.

"They're a class act," Phoenix Suns forward Mark Bryant says of the Bulls. "People love the way these guys handle themselves." Never in NBA history—perhaps never in sports history—have popularity and dominance so spectacularly coalesced.

"People certainly didn't have the love fest with us that they have with Jordan and Chicago," says K.C. Jones, a member of the Celtics dynasty of the '60s. In the '80s Boston and L.A. were both popular and successful, but they had to share the affection. As for the lead-dog franchise that followed them... well, as erstwhile Detroit Bad Boy Rodman says, "When I was with the Pistons, we were hated everywhere we went. I don't think the Bulls are disliked anywhere in the world."

Not even in Cleveland, where anti-Bulls vitriol, directed primarily at longtime Cavaliers tormentor Jordan, used to run deep. Cleveland fan Joe Morford, a lawyer from suburban Shaker Heights, took in the introductions before the Bulls-Cavs game on Feb. 27 at Gund Arena and shook his head. "Jordan got a bigger hand than any of the Cleveland starters, even [All-Star guard Terrell] Brandon," said Morford.

After the Cavs pulled off a 73-70 upset, Brandon was philosophical about Bullmania. "It's a problem when the home fans cheer for the opposing team," he said. "But there are a lot of part-time fans who just want to see the Bulls."

Fans like Neishal Kumar, an Alexandria, Va., teenager who says he spent $1,000 to buy a pair of seats behind the visitors' bench at the Washington Bullets' USAir Arena for the Feb. 21 Bulls-Bullets game. Kumar bought his tickets from none other than superheckler Robin Ficker, who said he passed up the game to watch his son in a high school wrestling tournament. So it's come to this in the National Bulls Association: Taking the place of a man who shouts insults at Jordan & Co. was a worshipful pilgrim wearing a number 23 Bulls jersey. President Clinton was also at the game, prompting this thumbs-down comment from Bullets point guard Rod Strickland: "We've played [25 home] games. He came to see Mike. He didn't come to see us." Gee, Rod, he really wanted to catch that Bullets-New Jersey Nets classic a week earlier, but he was busy.

Theories about the Bulls' universal popularity vary. "If you took Jordan off that team," says former Celtics coach Red Auerbach, "they'd be booing the crap out of them all over the place." That from someone who, except in Boston, got the crap booed out of him all over the place.

Another oft-booed expert, Suns coach Danny Ainge, agrees that there are Bulls haters but not Jordan haters. "Michael is the Muhammad Ali of the sport, the prince of basketball," says Ainge.

Denver Nuggets swingman Bryant Stith eloquently sums it up. "People don't hate [the Bulls]," he says, "because their leader appeals to the majority of people in the entire sports arena." Yeah, that's what Red meant.

Jordan disagrees, though here his diplomatic instincts might be doing the talking. "Every facet of our team has its own little support group," says Jordan. "You have Phil's Zen followers. Dennis has his followers. I have mine, and Scottie has his. Even Jud [Buechler] has his. Winning brings more attention, but it has to do with the personalities." Is there any doubt, though, that the single fact of being a Bull has turned Rodman from an eyesore into an icon? What might be called the Nike-ization of the NBA is also at work here. Whatever foibles a player has, they can be expunged or magically transmogrified into positives through movies (Space Jam) and countless feel-good ads. When you're a Bull, you're a champion, and when you're a champion, you're a winner as a human being. Image is everything. Unbalanced neurotic becomes lovable pet rock.

Whatever you think of Rodman, he has become an important patch in the Bulls' quilt, part of the free-flowing, gung ho, all-for-one style that is another reason for their popularity. "The Bulls are fluid, fast-paced, fun to watch," says Nets assistant coach Don Casey. Yes, Chicago is a rare open tap in a clogged-up league.

"They can freelance, and their coaches give them freedom," says the Cavs' Brandon. "A lot of coaches—way over half in the league—don't allow that." Indeed, there's almost as much play-calling in the NBA as there is in the NFL. And while most coaches are slowing down the game in an attempt to isolate their best players, Chicago's triangle offense gets everyone involved.

Of course, the Bulls have one huge advantage: Jordan ("the great eraser of mistakes," as Nuggets coach Dick Motta calls him) could bail out any offense. But with the exception of sixth man Toni Kukoc, it's doubtful that any of Chicago's role players—Steve Kerr, Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, even Rodman—would be more productive playing on any other team.

Chicago's offense has been so successful that it has nullified the axiom that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. No one dares imitate the Bulls, even though NBA teams usually play follow the leader. Quinn Buckner briefly installed the triangle when he took over as the Dallas Mavericks' coach in 1993, but he soon discovered that Jimmy Jackson and Jamal Mashburn each interpreted the triangle as meaning he got three times as many shots as everybody else.

Granted, the Bulls (Jordan included) didn't exactly take to this offense when it was installed in 1989. Like all systems, the triangle takes time to learn and mature players to execute. But Chicago stayed the course, on and off the court. The Bulls are one of the few franchises that have kept players around long enough to run an offense that requires cohesion and timing. (The only other team with comparable stability, the Utah Jazz, has stuck with a predictable pick-and-roll offense that invariably wins 50 games but bogs down in the playoffs.) Chicago ownership has taken care of the mainstays, Jordan and Pippen, and filled in the remaining spots with specialists who are comfortable in their roles.

"There's a reason there's so much coach control today," says Phil Jackson. "When you have young, inexperienced teams, you have situations in which coaches are afraid to let the players play. There are more talented, skilled players than ever. But that doesn't necessarily add up to better teams."

That is why the Bulls, overall, are not just good for the NBA—they're essential, if only to serve as a model. All over the league young, unprepared players are being handed the ball and, with it, the hopes of a franchise. Here it is, son. Now go sell us some tickets! With the spectacular but undisciplined Allen Iverson serving as bandleader this season, what chance did the 76ers have of becoming anything other than a sometimes exciting but deeply flawed sideshow? Do you think Iverson, christened franchise savior, wants to hear about a motion offense that restricts his shots? Do you think his coach, Johnny Davis, is confident enough in his job to install a system that takes time to work?

This situation is not unique to Philadelphia. Now that a player can become a free agent after only three years in the league, player movement is at an alltime high. (The Bulls, who held on to 11 of the 12 players from last season's opening-day roster, are an obvious exception.) Too many franchises are paying too much money to young players who have neither the maturity nor the supporting cast to succeed. But coaches can't take the time to sit and school the youngsters because ownership is impatient. Other franchises are going after quick-fix free agents and breaking up whatever chance a coach has of building cohesion. And too many coaches are trying desperately to keep control by slowing down play and, consequently, turning off the sport's electricity. After Seattle slogged by the Cavaliers 72-66 in Cleveland on Feb. 25, Sonics guard Hersey Hawkins said, "A couple times I looked in the stands and was amazed people were still there."

They are for now, Hersey. But will they be when the Bulls aren't around to build and sustain the buzz? Will the game's popularity go into serious decline in the three or four years it might take fans to, as Jordan says, "decrease expectations"?

Commissioner David Stern is sure it won't. "People said we were in trouble when Oscar Robertson or Magic Johnson or Larry Bird left the game," says Stern. "Great stars leave, great stars replace them."

Even a skeptic such as Barkley, who has criticized some of the league's young players, says the future is bright. He singles out the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Lakers and the Heat as franchises with potential and pizzazz. In fact, says Ainge, "it'll be better when the Bulls break up. More teams will feel they have a chance to win it all."

Maybe, but those on-the-rise teams should still study Chicago. No, those clubs won't have Jordan, a once-in-a-millennium player. But they should note that the Bulls built slowly, role player by role player. They should note that the Bulls put their coach clearly in charge. They should note that the Bulls did not drain the fun out of the game but kept it—what was Casey's word?—fluid, employing a style that is at once disciplined and wide open. And the other teams should note that Rodman's occasional transgressions notwithstanding, the Bulls played with class and sportsmanship.

But even if there is another model franchise by the turn of the century, it will not be enough. There had better be two or three. No single team could lead the NBA caravan as spectacularly as the Bulls and Jordan have. "I think some players are just happy to be on the same court with Mike, the fans to be in the same arena," says Atlanta Hawks center Dikembe Mutombo. "I cannot imagine that it could be like that with anybody else."